Quality First, Purpose Always

Each year, PwC US releases its annual Audit Quality Report, a voluntary year-in-review that gives us the opportunity to share how our culture, values, people and processes come together to help us achieve our audit quality objectives. We’ve spent the past year capitalizing on new opportunities, navigating new challenges, making enhancements and focusing, above all,  on our people. We recognize that when we put these pieces together, it provides an incredible foundation to enhance the quality of our work.

There’s so much to be proud of across our US assurance practice this past year. I want to take a moment to highlight some efforts and outcomes that really stood out to me.

Prioritizing our People

During the COVID-19 crisis, our first priority was to keep our people safe and healthy and give them the flexibility to care for themselves and their loved ones. At the same time, we were also focused on continuing to run our business and serve our clients. Our existing tools and infrastructure allowed our people to shift how they worked and continued to support our clients. It has always been our belief that human and machine collaboration can be far more powerful than either alone, and this balance was at the core of our approach. And importantly, throughout the pandemic, we have been committed to do all that we can to keep our people employed.

Investing in Technology to Support our People

Technology is a key part of how we’re revolutionizing the audit experience, but people are the heart of the audit. Our US Assurance business currently has over 500 professionals trained as Digital Accelerators who are able to use our technology platforms to dig deeper into their client’s data, surfacing audit-related matters and providing relevant perspectives and insights as a result of audit procedures. Our commitment to digital upskilling and people-led innovation — part of our New world. New skills investment in our people — is helping redefine the profession. We’re developing more well-rounded professionals who are skilled in both digital and audit acumen, and this, in turn, enhances the audit experience. To be successful on our journey to digitally enable our business, innovation must come from the center (business-led), but must also be driven on the ground in our engagements (people-led). 

Expanding Our Commitment  to Diversity & Inclusion

Over the summer, PwC US took a bold step in its D&I journey and for the first time, we shared our diversity data and strategy. While we have made progress in our efforts, we are not yet where we aspire to be, and will continue to support equity and parity of experience for all of our people. We are committed to progress and transparency and hope to make an impact outside the walls of PwC by encouraging other businesses to do the same. Tim Ryan, our US Chair & Senior Partner, said it best,  “...we are reinforcing our commitment to accelerating our progress as we continue to strengthen a culture of belonging.”

Staying Focused on Independence

Our independence protocols and monitoring processes related to the acceptance and performance of non-audit services are designed to address the risks from having multiple lines of service and to provide our people with the training and support they need to maintain independence in fact and appearance. 

Establishing an Independent Advisory Committee

The establishment of the Assurance Quality Advisory Committee (AQAC) makes PwC US unique as the only firm with both a Board that includes external members and an independent advisory committee focused on quality. The AQAC consists of three members — Russ Golden, Alan Bellar and Joanne Wakim — who have the collective experience and deep understanding of the interests of the preparer, auditor, investor, standard-setting, and regulatory communities. The AQAC will provide perspectives and advice to Assurance Leadership on aspects of the business, operations, culture, governance, and risk management approach that are reasonably expected to impact audit and assurance quality. 

And we are seeing the results of our collective efforts. In our 2020 PCAOB inspection cycle — with more than three quarters of the PCAOB’s total planned inspections complete though mid-September 2020 — our results have been exceptional and reflect a significant reduction in the number of issuers receiving comment forms as compared to our most recent published inspection report. Additionally we continue to see positive results in our internal inspections, and are proud that 99.6% of issuer audit client financial statements were not restated.  

We’re pleased with the progress but are never satisfied — nor will we become complacent when it comes to audit quality. Quality is a never ending journey, and one that we’re committed to travel. And when we drive quality, we are better able to deliver on our purpose — to build trust in society and solve important problems. 

I am proud of what we have been able to accomplish over this past year and excited for what the next twelve months will bring.